The west side of Williams-Brice Stadium has a new look, and the most obvious change is South Carolina’s newest branding move showing up in a very public spot.
On Friday, crews installed an updated 35-by-80-foot banner on the stadium side that faces Bluff Road, replacing the sun-faded garnet “Welcome Home” banner that had been there for the past five years. The phrase remains, tied to Shane Beamer’s recruiting slogan, but the presentation has been refreshed now that South Carolina has moved from Under Armour to Nike.
The Swoosh now sits beneath the “Welcome Home” word mark, making Nike a visible part of the display. The Palmetto tree above the slogan was also tweaked slightly and now looks more like the trees commonly seen around Columbia.
That banner has had a few lives already. It first appeared on the west side of Willy-B five days before the Gamecocks opened the 2014 season, when it featured a photo of Steve Spurrier. After Spurrier resigned in December 2015, it was taken down and replaced in time for the Will Muschamp era with an image of a player wearing No. 1 and a reflective shield over his helmet.
Beamer’s version arrived before his first season in 2021, as “Welcome Home” was catching on as a recruiting line. That earlier banner did not age well, though. It came out looking far from garnet - more brownish-purple than anything else - and South Carolina removed it almost immediately, saying that “The colors on our new Williams-Brice Stadium banner did not come out as intended.”
This time, even with the program’s move to Nike apparel, the new banner appeared to hit the right shade.
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